Every year, families pack up the minivan and head to the Florida Panhandle for a beach vacation with a Southern accent.
In an article titled “White Sand, Clear Water” by Shannon Sims, the New York Times describes the Florida Panhandle as “a beach vacation with a Southern accent.”
An excerpt: “Of all of the communities along 30A, perhaps none draws as much attention as Seaside, a remarkable feat of modern urban design, which was aimed at creating a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood with interconnected streets, footpaths, various parks and a central plaza. The community of 475 ‘cottages’ is so idealistically and tightly master-planned that the town served as the setting for the film ‘The Truman Show,’ as a showcase of stifling perfection. But the intention, says Robert Davis, the community’s founder and visionary architect, was to recreate the feeling of his childhood in the 1940s and 1950s.
Mr. Davis said in a telephone interview that his idea was ‘big screened-in porches and ceiling fans, built off the beach so it wouldn’t float away when a hurricane came.’ His concept, which is considered a touchstone of the New Urbanism architectural movement, was that every home was a walkable distance from the town center, and the success of that concept along 30A is evident: New communities mimicking Seaside, like WaterColor and Rosemary Beach, have cropped up and continue to grow in popularity.”
To read the full article, click here.